home → articles → Production | Email to a Friend

Early weaning can be tool for managing forage in drought

published: July 24th 2009
by: Martha Hollida Garrett

As summer lingers on and the drought intensifies, producers may want to consider early weaning of calves, to decrease the forage needs on the pasture and improve the body condition of the cowherd.
    Twig Marston, Kansas State University extension specialist cites several advantages concerning the practice. He says that weaned cow-calf pairs consume approximately 25 percent less feed than normally weaned pairs and that early weaning does not compromise calf performance. He says that dry, early gestation beef cows require only 60 percent of the energy and 50 percent of the protein of lactating cows and dry cows will consume 30 percent less forage than lactating cows, plus it is more efficient to fed calves directly rather than feed cows to sustain milk production.
    This practice is especially helpful to keeping young females in good flesh. Marston says young cows in their first or second lactation are the ideal candidates for early weaning, as they have additional nutrient requirements for growth, besides the maintenance and lactation.
    Another factor for producers to analyze would be water, as dry cows require 60 percent less water than lactating cows. As the drought persists, many producers are worried about maintaining adequate water supplies.
    Early weaning can be done on calves as young as 6-weeks of age, or on older calves approaching normal weaning age. Calves must be fed if retained and the weanint process will be much easier, if the calves are already used to eating.
    Early weaning will be most effective when it is used in combination with other drought management tools, according to Ron Gill and Bruce Carpenter, Texas A&M AgriLife professors and livestock specialists.
    In the publication, Beef Cattle Penning, they advise producers to first and foremost conduct a survey of available forage and determine how long it will last under current growing conditions with proper grazing. For help in making that determination, producers can click on http://agrilifebookstore.org/publications and click on forages and pastures and choose from publications there about stocking rates and forage supply.
    If you determine that the forage standing in the pasture will not sustain current cow numbers, then the main options to consider are culling cows or moving them to leased lands. Feeding extra energy (hay or concentrate) may help, but it is often not economical for long periods. Early weaning of calves may help, depending on how early it is done. The main reasons to wean early are to benefit the cow and that comes after you’ve made sure there is enough forage to sustain them at whatever stocking rate you’ve elected to try and keep, advises Gill and Carpenter.
    They provide the following example of forage savings possible with early weaning.
    Consider a 1,100 lb. cow that eats 2% of her body weight per day in dry forage and weans a 7-month-old calf at 500 lbs. The calf eats 3% of his body weight per day while gaining 1.75 lbs per day his last 2 months. Selling him 60 days early at 395 lbs. would save 13.4 lbs of forage per day, or 806 lbs. of forage for the whole 60-day period. That works out to about 2 calves per cow. This means for every two early-weaned calves, you’d save enough forage for one cow for that same 60-day period.
    There are two types of early-weaning as one is done primarily to improve body condition on cows that have already bred and are carrying a calf and the second type is done just prior to or during the breeding season in order to increase the chance of getting cows bred.
     According to the article, with the first type, calves are typically weaned at one to three months early and they are worth less at weaning. A 395 lb calf might be worth $494, whereas a 500 lb. calf might be worth $540. So for $35, you improve the cow’s odds of breeding back and doing it early and probably save enough forage to buy her another month of grazing.
    If ownership on calves is retained through the feedlot phase, then the cost of weaning two months or so early could be minimal. Often times better feed conversion on lighter calves makes up for their longer time on feed.
    The second type of early weaning is done just prior to, or during the breeding season in order to increase the chance of getting cows bred.  In this scenario, calves are weaned even earlier than in the first description. Oklahoma researchers demonstrated a 38 percent improvement in pregnancy rates for thin first calf heifers whose calves had been early weaned at 6 to 8 weeks of age.
    If calves are weaned early because of drought, then they probably need to be removed from the ranch. Options include selling them immediately finding leased pasture, growing them in a trap with hay and supplement or growing them in a feedlot with full feed.
    If early weaning is used and managed properly, it can improve cow body condition and reduce reproductive failures in females.  It can also help reduce forage needs for the herd, somewhat. Selling calves or growing them should be made by evaluating feed costs vs. calf market value at a given weight.
    Drought forces many decisions and the weaning early may be one decision to consider.